Full Metal Jacket Ovipositor

A different insect on the spear thistle this afternoon. This is an Ichneumon wasp. It's a vast family but I think I've narrowed this down to Lissonota biguttata.


Ichneumon means "one who follows footsteps". These wasps locate larvae of other bugs by smell. They bore into wood, or in this case the thistle bud, with their ovipositor inside a sheath which has a hard cuticle which contains zinc and manganese to make it strong and prevent it from wearing. The ovipositor is then withdrawn from the sheath and the egg is laid down the bored hole in or near the insect egg or larva. The sheath can be seen at the right of my pic and the ovipositor is doing its business deep in the bud. Pure Alien. :)